Understanding Class Prototypes and the Inheritance Chain in JavaScript

Reveal the Secrets of Object-Oriented JavaScript

Photo by Zhouxing Lu on Unsplash

In the world of JavaScript, understanding class prototypes and the inheritance chain is crucial for mastering object-oriented programming (OOP). These concepts lie at the heart of how objects in JavaScript are created, extended, and interact with one another.

In this article, we’ll dive deep into these topics, providing clear explanations and up-to-date code examples to help you grasp the underlying mechanics.

Prototypes: The Foundation of JavaScript Objects

In JavaScript, every object has an internal property called [[Prototype]], often referred to as the object's prototype. This prototype is a reference to another object, which serves as a fallback source for properties and methods that the original object doesn't have.

When you try to access a property or method on an object, JavaScript first looks for it on the object itself. If it doesn't find it, it follows the [[Prototype]] chain until it either finds the property or reaches the end of the chain.

Here’s an example to illustrate this concept:

const animal = {
  eat: function() {…